What is a Christian Church?

Isn’t every church that follows Jesus a Christian church?

We could bore you with a lot of names, dates, and history, but in short the Christian churches originated in the early 1800’s not so much as a new denomination, but as people with a renewed focus on the Bible as their guide for life and understanding of God.

That said we’re not suggesting we’re the only church who follows the Bible. Nor do we believe we’re the only Christians. In an attempt to combat such notions, the earliest leaders of the Christian churches adopted slogans like:

We are not the only Christians, but Christians onlyIn essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things love

They represented a mixture of Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians from places like Ireland, England, Scotland, and the United States. How’s that for diversity?

As a Christian church we desire to embrace all followers of Jesus Christ. We believe Christ came to create one Church, not simply one congregation or even one denomination. We believe the Church should be the one place in society where people from different social, economic, ethnic, political, and geographical backgrounds are united by their faith in Jesus.

All that said, we do believe the Bible can be made to say what it doesn’t mean. Scripture can be misused, abused, and mocked, which brings us back to where we began: we’re simply a group of people trying to follow the Bible as faithfully as possible.

So we’re a Christian church. We’re not a building. We’re not an organization. We’re not a club. We’re people. We’re people with various backgrounds, opinions, and flaws. But we’re people committed to Jesus. And that makes us part of this great mystery called the Church.